Broward killer apologizes, then speaks against death penalty before execution

Siblings of victim

Brittany Wallman / Sun Sentinel

Deborah Knights and Sal Cox, sister and brother of victim Janet Cox Thermidor, reacted emotionally after the execution of her killer. Knights read from a statement, calling Henry a "demon from hell.'' Both siblings live in Broward.

Deborah Knights and Sal Cox, sister and brother of victim Janet Cox Thermidor, reacted emotionally after the execution of her killer. Knights read from a statement, calling Henry a "demon from hell.'' Both siblings live in Broward. (Brittany Wallman / Sun Sentinel)

— Broward killer Robert Lavern Henry, who viciously beat and burned his co-workers in order to steal $1,269.26, was put to death by lethal injection Thursday at Florida State Prison.

Janet Cox Thermidor, 35, and Phyllis Harris, 53, lost their lives in the sadistic crime more than 26 years ago.

Minutes before he died, Henry apologized, then philosophized against the death penalty.

"Hopefully, in the not-so-distant future, this society shall truly evolve in its law and practice, in that if we are not a society who are comfortable with castrating and raping a rapist, and we do not chop off the hands of thieves,'' he read from a statement, "well then, why would we continue to be murderers to those who have murdered?''

He went on as the family members of those he killed sat feet away, watching through a wide window.

"Many would argue that is the law, and my counter would be, so too was slavery.''

Thermidor's brother, Sal Cox, had heard enough.

"Die,'' he said from the front row.

Henry said that if his death would make the devastated family members and friends of his victims "heal or feel better because it is the law, I do not begrudge you your closure.''

He said he was "sincerely" sorry to "the innocent women of my crime,'' their friends and family, and his own friends and family.

"I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, and "I willingly forfeit this life for a better life that He offers us all,'' he said.

Henry blinked repeatedly and appeared to be talking or praying as the injections began at 6:05 p.m. His lips slowly stopped moving, but he continued breathing for several minutes. He was declared dead at 6:16 p.m.

He'd spent the day "calm and in good spirits,'" according to Assistant Warden Jeffrey McClellan.

He asked for a final meal of red beans and rice, oxtail, pecan pie and ice cream, and orange juice, McClellan said, and he ate most of it.

He spent six hours Wednesday with family: a sister, an aunt, a niece and his mother. On Thursday he met for two hours with what McClellan called a "mitigation specialist" from his legal team.

Henry, 55, a Boynton Beach native and former Marine, had been in prison since he was 30 for the crime, a gruesome act of cruelty that gave emergency responders nightmares, court records show.

The first firefighter at the scene said in court records that he had to seek counseling to deal with what he saw, and went to sleep thinking about it every night.

A Deerfield Beach police detective told the court he also had recurring nightmares about it, and felt the death penalty was appropriate.

Deerfield's deputy fire chief at the time, Jim Ray, said it was "as grotesque of a thing I've ever been involved in. It is unimaginable that one human being could do this to another.''

"I can't believe I did this,'' he said to detectives during their initial investigation, court records show. "I just can't believe it.''

So that he could rob the Cloth World fabric store in Deerfield Beach where he worked with Thermidor and Harris, Henry beat them with a hammer and set them on fire on Nov. 2, 1987. They'd been nice to him, he told detectives, and he didn't need the money either.

Thermidor, niece of former longtime Broward elected official Sylvia Poitier, lived long enough to tell officials who was responsible.

Henry later said that he was addicted to crack cocaine and under "a cocaine-induced psychosis.'' He also argued he'd suffered a severely dysfunctional childhood, court records show.

Court records say Henry was listed "as a deserter'' when he left the U.S. Marine Corps after a troubled six-year history marked by numerous disciplinary cases.

According to records and media reports of the murders:

Henry, who'd been working at the fabric store for only a few weeks, told detectives he helped the women close up shop, then told Harris there were armed robbers in the store. She trusted him, and allowed him to tie her up and blindfold her in the men's bathroom.

He picked up a hammer he'd bought for the store and knocked on the office door, where Thermidor was counting the cash. It was after 9 p.m. When she answered and then turned away, he hit her twice on the back of the head and took the money.

Then, he told a detective, he sprayed her with a flammable aerosol spray and set her on fire, following her when she ran to the women's bathroom.

Henry then went to Harris and attacked her with the hammer, doused her with the flammable substance and lit a match, setting her on fire.

She was dead when emergency personnel arrived at the store. Thermidor was still alive, moaning in pain; she died 12 hours later at a hospital.

"He had a choice: to kill or not to kill. He chose to kill," Broward State Attorney Mike Satz told jurors at the time. "He didn't stop short of hammering these defenseless ladies, who were just trying to go home. Look how he eliminated them. You talk about atrocious, heinous, cruel, vile or wicked. He literally burned them up. This is a case that nightmares are made of."

Initially, Henry claimed he'd been taken hostage by three robbers, who he said took him away in a vehicle and played Russian roulette, holding a gun to his head. He said they later pushed him out of their car and he hitchhiked back to town, where he called police.

Henry later confessed to the murders and robbery on tape.

At the hospital, Thermidor, the niece of former Deerfield Beach and Broward County commissioner Poitier, asked doctors over and over whether she was going to die, they testified.

The lead singer — an alto — at St. Paul United Methodist Church of Deerfield Beach, and a kindergarten Sunday school teacher, Thermidor held a second job to help support her parents. One of five children, she was a 1970 graduate of Pompano Beach High School.

"She was 35 years old and all of it was put to good use," Poitier said at the time.

Thursday, her sister, Deborah Knights, said the family "will always cherish the memory of her life'' that was "taken too soon by a demon from hell." Next to her, her brother, Sal Cox, cried in anguish.

Harris was the mother of five. She and her husband, Bert, had moved to Deerfield Beach from Iowa after raising their kids. He taught social studies and was an assistant football coach at Deerfield Beach High School; she worked as an attendance clerk at Northeast High in Oakland Park in addition to her job at the fabric store.

Her son, Rick Harris, said Thursday that the family has endured "27 years of pain and sorrow.''

"His brutal acts cut out the heart of our family, sending our father to an early grave and depriving us, our children and their children of a loving and empathetic presence,'' he said.

Satz, whose office was represented at the execution, said the crime was "one of the worst we've ever seen in Broward, against "two hardworking, kind-hearted women. I hope that his execution will bring a measure of closure for the Harris and Thermidor families."

Henry was the 85th person executed in Florida since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976, and the 16th executed during Gov. Rick Scott's term, more than any other modern Florida governor in a single term, the Orlando Sentinel reported Saturday.

Henry's last trip to Broward County was to the courthouse last week, as he and Fort Lauderdale attorney Kevin Kulik attempted to stop the execution on the grounds that Henry would suffer pain. The appeal was denied.